Retelling the story of the Brontë sisters in Normandy

On a warm evening in early April, over 70 people crowded into the 18th-century court-room of the hôtel de ville, the mairie, of a small village in Haut-Normandie to hear a talk about Les Sœurs Brontë. 

The speaker, Myriam Campinaire, well known to members of the Brussels Brontë Group as its long-standing treasurer and one of its founding members, had been invited by the Friends Association of Lyons la Forêt, which will soon celebrate its centenary.

 

The president of the association, Madame Noëlle de la Loge, organises a series of “causeries” — concerts, walks and cultural events — throughout the year, which are well supported by the villagers and many from farther afield who have second homes in the area. 

 

Noëlle’s introduction posed the question of how it was that three daughters of a poor clergyman, living in a disadvantaged village in the north of England in the first half of the nineteenth century, had written some of the most innovative and best-loved novels of English literature. 

The story of Patrick Brontë’s impoverished childhood in rural Ireland, his education at Cambridge University, his decision to bring his wife and six children — Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne — to live at the parsonage at Haworth, the tragedy of the succession of deaths and the remarkable books that have survived them all is well known to members of the Brussels Brontë Group, and probably to most readers of this blog. It was, however, less well known to the audience in the mairie, who listened with rapt attention as Myriam gave a captivating talk that drew on her deep knowledge of both the family’s history and the literature they produced. 

Haworth Parsonage in the time of the Brontës

Myriam began by asking her audience to forget the balmy spring air in the picturesque village with roses and wisteria clambering over the walls of the colombage houses, and instead to imagine themselves in Haworth 200 years ago. She conjured up the archetypical image of the windswept moors under a lowering sky and explained how the ever-threatening rain not only drenched the inhabitants, but meant that many lived in damp, unsanitary homes. She explained how the pollution of the town’s water-supply from its course through the cemetery was responsible for many premature deaths (the average life expectancy was just 24). 

Patrick Brontë’s young wife, Maria, died not long after the family moved to the village. Faced with the difficulty of educating his children, Rev. Brontë decided to send the girls to a newly established school for clergymen’s daughters, Cowan Bridge; he himself would teach his son, Branwell. The eldest two children, Maria and Elizabeth, were the first to be sent away to the school, and Charlotte and later Emily followed them. 

 

Conditions at the Cowan Bridge school were hard. The girls were harshly disciplined, humiliated and regularly punished. Poor nutrition and severe cold led to many of the girls succumbing to tuberculosis. One of those affected was Maria Brontë. By the time the school contacted Rev. Brontë to let him know of her illness, and although he went immediately to the school to collect her, it was already too late. She died a few weeks later, just aged eleven. 

 

Her farther considered Maria to be the most brilliant of his children and told Mrs. Gaskell that he could converse with her on current affairs as with an equal. There can be no doubt that her death greatly affected her sisters, and Maria was the model on whom Charlotte based the life and death of Helen Burns in Jane Eyre. Within a matter of weeks Elizabeth too was ill, and brought back to the parsonage, where she died less than a month after her sister, at the age of ten. 

Myriam went on to explain how after the death of his wife, Rev. Brontë made a number of marriage proposals, but with no success. So Aunt Branwell (Maria’s sister) became a permanent member of the parsonage household. The children had access to books and periodicals, such as Blackwood’s Magazine, and were well versed in all the political debates of the day. One rainy day, they began to amuse themselves by making up stories. This led to the outpourings of war-faring, romantic scandals and other fast-paced events in their juvenilia, carefully recorded and illustrated in minute, home-made notebooks. 

Anne, Emily and Chalotte in Branwell's 'Pillar Portait'

Charlotte and Branwell shared the creation of an imaginary country, Angria, while Emily and Anne invented another, Gondal. The dashing and exhilarating exploits of their heroes and heroines became almost an addiction for Charlotte and, many years later, it took an effort of will for her to stop herself writing these narratives. 

 

The girls later attended a happier school than Cowan Bridge, then both Charlotte and Anne had spells working as governesses, while all the hope that Patrick Brontë had invested in Branwell was gradually dissipated as, failing to meet his father’s expectations, Branwell declined into alcohol and drug abuse, from which he was to die, aged 31. 

 

Naturally, Myriam outlined Charlotte’s and Emily’s time at the Pensionnat in Brussels and Charlotte’s ill-judged infatuation for Monsieur Heger, and the novels that emerged from this experience, notably Villette. She also explained how the sisters’ venture into publishing their work met very little success in the case of their poetry, but was then followed by the publication of the novels, which saw a very mixed critical response. 

 

Throughout the talk, Myriam quoted from poems, letters, one of Emily’s Brussels devoirs (Le Chat) and the novels. Perhaps the quotation that incited the most response — a sharp collective intake of outraged breath, followed by some indignant murmuring — was Robert Southey’s famous letter to Charlotte warning her that “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be.” 

At the end, many members of the audience had questions, which Myriam addressed carefully, although as time began to run out, it was clear that there were many other points that the audience were keen to explore during the traditional verre de l'amitié, sparkling wine and canapes! As they were leaving, many commented that they had read Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights when young, but intended to reread them in the light of what they now knew about the sisters’ lives. Many also said that they were also planning to read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Villette. 

 

The extent of the resonance of the sisters’ work was illustrated by one member of the audience, a Japanese lady, who had interrupted her planned weekend in Paris to come to the talk. She explained that she had read Wuthering Heights 30 years ago but had forgotten all about it until Myriam’s words brought Emily’s novel vividly back to mind — the weather, the scenery, the poetry and the sheer strange awfulness of Heathcliff — had all been stored away in her memory. 

Myriam Campinaire and Noëlle de la Loge

For many, the story of the tragic lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne is as well known as their novels, but just as a great novel can be read over and over again and always bring some new insights, so a good story-teller weaves their magic in making the familiar as fresh and startling as when we first encountered it. 

That evening in April, Myriam brought her magic to our Normandy village, and I found myself marveling once again at the miracle of three sisters who produced such extraordinary works.

  Dawn Robey